Officer's alleged use of slur under investigation

An audio recording of an Lafayette Police Department officer allegedly using a racial slur is now the subject of an internal investigation.

Councilman Kenneth Boudreaux confirmed today that an investigation is underway. Retired officer Andres Landor, who made a formal complaint on Monday, says he received an email Tuesday from an LPD internal affairs official confirming that an investigation is underway.

"I realize that the behavior and content of the allegation that has been made has no place in this government or our community," Boudreaux said in written statement Tuesday. "there is a process in place to deal with such situation. This must play out and see what it produces before any other course of action is taken."

Landor retired on Feb. 18 after 21 years with the department. He included the recording in a letter to council members.

"To hear a co-worker refer to fellow African American officers as (slur) is not only the lowest of low insult but also leaves me to imagine what the average citizen is referred to and how he or she is treated by an officer with these views," he write in the letter.

The recording, which was apparently made three years ago, was handed over to LPD administration a year and a half ago as part of a federal lawsuit filed by 15 officers, but nothing was done, Landor said. It was part of several clandestine recordings made by one of the officers in the suit. The suit was dismissed last year.

Landor received the recording shortly before he retired this year and felt like the plural slur referred to all black officers in LPD, including him, and maybe the entire community. He took to social media after he says immediate action was not taken by the council and then filed a formal complaint on Monday.

He said the recording is part of a bigger issue.

"One bad apple doesn't spoil the whole bunch. But I still say one bad tree will produce a bunch of bad apples and unless you get to the core, you will continue to produce bad apples and that has to be addressed," Landor said in an interview with KATC today. "The core of it has to be addressed and for some reason it's not."